A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters

The stunning autobiography of Barbara Pym, celebrated author of Quartet in Autumn, Jane and Prudence, and Excellent Women. "I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym." RICHARD OSMAN "Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure." JILLY COOPER "Could one write a book based on one's diaries over thirty years? I certainly have enough material," wrote Barbara Pym. Selected from the diaries, notebooks, and letters of this beloved novelist A Very Private Eye is a unique, continuous narrative autobiography, providing a privileged insight into a writer's mind. Philip Larkin wrote that Barbara Pym had "a unique eye and ear for the small poignancies of everyday life." Her autobiography amply demonstrates this, as it traces her life from exuberant times at Oxford in the Thirties, through the war when, scarred by an unhappy love affair, she joined the WRNS, to the published novelist of the Fifties. It deals with the long period when her novels were out of fashion and no one would publish them, her rediscovery in 1977, and the triumphant success of her last few years. It is now possible to describe a place, situation or person as "very Barbara Pym." At once funny and moving, A Very Private Eye shows the variety and depth of her own story.… (more)